Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems including a Reprint of Echoes from Theocritus: By Wilfred Austin Gill: With a Critical Estimate of the Sonnets by the late John Addington Symonds |
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COLORES
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 | Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems |  |
170
COLORES
A MOAN AFTER MOON-SET
O thou that art sanguine and subtle,
With fingers so wicked and white,
And eyes that are black as a cuttle,
And brows that are blue as a blight.
O terriblest torture invented!
O purplest passion intense!
(Have you heard of a poet demented,
Benign Common-sense?)
With fingers so wicked and white,
And eyes that are black as a cuttle,
And brows that are blue as a blight.
O terriblest torture invented!
O purplest passion intense!
(Have you heard of a poet demented,
Benign Common-sense?)
O love that is redder than roses!
O hate that is whiter than snow!
That blinkedly blindedly blazes,
When black-blooded blast-blisses blow;
Desert us, disdain us, O never!
Still fashion our fatuous fate;
O lick us and kick us for ever,
Red love and white hate!
O hate that is whiter than snow!
That blinkedly blindedly blazes,
When black-blooded blast-blisses blow;
Desert us, disdain us, O never!
Still fashion our fatuous fate;
O lick us and kick us for ever,
Red love and white hate!
Let thy crying out-crimson the poppy,
Thy yellings out-yellow the moon
All gilt with the gold of her copy
While thy moanings are simply maroon;
Let the robe of thy redness be rounded,
And the doom of desire be dense;
(Let the meaning of this be expounded,
Say I, Common-sense.)
Thy yellings out-yellow the moon
All gilt with the gold of her copy
While thy moanings are simply maroon;
Let the robe of thy redness be rounded,
And the doom of desire be dense;
(Let the meaning of this be expounded,
Say I, Common-sense.)
171
By the foam and the froth and the flashes,
The flashes, the froth and the foam,
By the crag-cradled craving and crashes
Through globulous glimmering gloom,
By the red, by the redder, the reddest,
The greenest, the greener, the green,
By the folly that feeds where thou feddest,
And licks thy plate clean.
The flashes, the froth and the foam,
By the crag-cradled craving and crashes
Through globulous glimmering gloom,
By the red, by the redder, the reddest,
The greenest, the greener, the green,
By the folly that feeds where thou feddest,
And licks thy plate clean.
By the fin-smashing fists that have smitten
The bruises that blacken and bud,
By the tawny-tailed cur that has bitten
When the thong has come down with a thud,
By all that is cruel and crimson,
By all that is mean and immense,
(In a word, by the horrors he hymns on,
Benign Common-sense.)
The bruises that blacken and bud,
By the tawny-tailed cur that has bitten
When the thong has come down with a thud,
By all that is cruel and crimson,
By all that is mean and immense,
(In a word, by the horrors he hymns on,
Benign Common-sense.)
Who shall say whether red is ecstatic,
Or green a more furious hue?
Must it always remain problematic
Whether passion is purple or blue?
Sea-serpents sequestered in sadness,
That satiate sorrow with salt,
O read us this riddle of madness,
Since we are at fault!
Or green a more furious hue?
Must it always remain problematic
Whether passion is purple or blue?
Sea-serpents sequestered in sadness,
That satiate sorrow with salt,
O read us this riddle of madness,
Since we are at fault!
So the saffron shall simulate sable,
The bluest and blackest shall blend,
All the bases shall build them a Babel,
Red, blue, green,—and so on to the end.
(Ye bards that make Bedlam your model,
Remove your absurdities hence!
Come down and redeem us from twaddle,
Benign Common-sense!)
The bluest and blackest shall blend,
All the bases shall build them a Babel,
Red, blue, green,—and so on to the end.
(Ye bards that make Bedlam your model,
Remove your absurdities hence!
Come down and redeem us from twaddle,
Benign Common-sense!)
Oxford, 1876.
| Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems | |